Full Circle
by frazzledsoul
Summary: What if Lorelai and Rory ended up experiencing the major milestones of their adult lives at the same time? AU. Picks up where Bon Voyage left off but does not follow the AYITL timeline.
1. Lorelai

_I return to fanfic writing!_

 _First of all, apologies if you've been following my other stories: I've had a crazy past couple of months, between changing jobs, moving for the first time in thirteen(!) years, and a string of bad luck that I won't detail here. I intend to return to them soon, but this idea has been percolating in my head for the past couple of weeks, and I thought it would give it a go._

 _Some of the chapters I have planned will focus on Lorelai and some will focus on Rory. This takes place almost completely outside of the AYITL plotline, although I may introduce some plot elements from the revival from time to time._

 _So that said, read, enjoy, and I hope to update soon!_

Lorelai had thought that sending Rory off into the adult world would feel like her heart being ripped out of her chest.

She had been dreading it for days, weeks, maybe even years. Despite what everyone had told her when she was a newly knocked-up teenager, she still felt that those first eighteen years raising Rory as she grew up herself had been the easy part. Rory had been her best friend, her partner, her sole family, the foundation for the life she had built as an adult. Then Rory was a teenager, and Lorelai had to learn to let that perfect gingerbread house she had cobbled together for them finally be consumed. It wouldn't do any good to let all of their effort just sit there moldering as the chocolate parts melted and the sugar turned rancid. In order for it to mean anything at all, she had to let Rory partake of what she had helped create for her and accept that she was finally growing up.

So there was Chilton, and letting her parents be a part of their lives again, knowing that Rory might choose to accept their values instead of her own. There were the boyfriends they had finally let into their lives, both hers and Rory's. Through it all, Rory mostly remained her perfect little girl: studious, well-behaved, diplomatic in a way that Lorelai could never be, while still hard-working and determined to accomplish her dreams.

Then there were the college years, and things were upended in ways Lorelai never could have anticipated.

Her perfect little girl seemed to be spinning out of control: sleeping with her married boyfriend, slowly being sucked into the decadent rich kid's world that had almost ruined Lorelai, getting arrested for stealing a yacht, dropping out of college and running off to live with Lorelai's parents. Lorelai had felt at a loss to stop or even slow down most of these events. Rory hadn't even wanted to listen to her try.

Throughout all of it, there was Luke.

He had been her other best friend, her support, the person who understood and provided for them at every step of the process, no matter what. If Stars Hollow had been the haven in which she had chosen to build their home, he was the rock that held it all together. Lorelai had been afraid of splintering that rock under the weight of making their relationship into something more, even as she wondered to herself more and more often what it might be like if she did give it a chance.

It had been more frightening and more magical than she had thought possible when she finally did.

She was still piecing together why she had chosen to end things in the way that she did. She had finally felt at peace with Rory moving on to adulthood and to a life away from her and was ready for her part in what came afterwards: marriage, a family, a life in Stars Hollow without Rory. It had never felt possible with anyone else in quite the way that it had with Luke. Then the impossible happened: Luke found a family that didn't include her and started pulling away from her as he slowly became someone she didn't recognize anymore.

The panic and the heartache and the hopelessness crescendoed inside of her head until it seemed like the only way to stop it was to destroy what was left of their relationship.

One year and one more spontaneous life decision later – which had turned out to be equally disastrous -she was still picking up the pieces. So much had changed, and yet nothing had changed. She was about to become truly untethered from Rory for the first time, and she had no idea what that meant at this point.

She still loved Luke. They could learn to forgive each other and be friends again, and Lorelai was immensely grateful for at least that. She wanted more, but she didn't know if Luke felt the same. She didn't know if either of them were capable of it.

She still wanted to get married. She still wanted to have another child. She had learned the hard way that you couldn't build a life that included these things on a whim, and that you couldn't force yourself to be in love with someone just because he claimed to want them too. She didn't know if it would happen for her at this point, but if it did, it had to be for a better reason than because he asked.

In the meantime, she had Rory for the small amount of time left to her, so she treasured it and tried not to think about what would happen next. She fretted with her daughter over surprise engagements and missed fellowship opportunities. She tried not to think about the ebb and flow of the black weight on her heart that signified her little girl's impending departure.

It was going to hurt. It was going to hurt a lot.

Then came Rory's surprise job offer, and the surprise farewell party thrown for her by the town, and Sookie's confession that _it was Luke, all Luke._

Lorelai knew right then.

It scared the hell out of her, but she wanted it. She wanted that future, all of the traditional things that hadn't been a part of the first phase of her life, and she wanted them with Luke. It didn't matter how many sacrifices she would have to make or how hard it would be to get over the mistakes that both of them had made. If was open to any of it, she was going to do whatever she could to make it happen.

 _I just like to see you happy._

He was the same. He had always been the same. He would do anything for her and Rory – and for anybody else he cared about – without expecting anything in return, and then shrug it off by saying it was no big deal.

That huge, hulking, protective spirit – wrapped in layers of cynicism and gruffness – was what she had fallen in love with so many years ago. She felt it in every kiss, every embrace, every porch railing fixed and coffee cup poured.

She was in his arms within seconds.

For the first time in a long time, Lorelai felt like things might turn out to be all right.

* * *

As Lorelai watched Rory board the plane, she was reminded of a memory from a little over twelve years ago.

They had gone to visit Christopher in California for the first and only time. Rory was beyond ecstatic: not only was this the first time she had really gotten to travel anywhere, but her father was finally paying attention to her for the first time in her life. He had wooed Lorelai and Rory with promises of museums and bookstores and trips to the beach, and Lorelai started to have a little faith that he might actually be stable enough to be included in their lives on more than an occasional basis. She booked the first vacation time she had dared to take since becoming assistant manager of the Independence Inn a year ago and settled Rory in for her very first plane ride.

The promises were an illusion, of course. Christopher's start-up business was a messy desk in the corner of his apartment that he only occasionally used to do work. He didn't have the money for the museum admittance fees, never mind the bookstores, and the brief joy Lorelai had allowed herself after their hook-up on the first night there immediately turned to bitter disappointment when she found out that Christopher already had an assortment of girlfriends he couldn't choose between. She used her meager credit card balance to book an early flight back against Christopher's protests and took Rory to the beach herself so they would have at least something to remember the experience by.

Lorelai and Rory had ridden the waves for a while, then she returned to the beach and carefully watched Rory while she stayed in the water. Rory was nearly ten, after all, and she had a rented beach float: Lorelai figured that after another twenty minutes in the water, her daughter would be more than ready to lounge on a towel next to her.

Lorelai's heart actually did feel ripped out of her chest when she glanced up and saw Rory fifty feet out from where she had last seen her, slowly becoming smaller and smaller as she drifted out towards the horizon.

Lorelai dove into the water as she swam out to Rory, a thousand memories rising to the surface of her brain. The first ultrasound. Rory's tiny, clenched fists when Lorelai held her for the first time. Rory as a toddler, following Lorelai from room to room as she cleaned rooms at the inn. Rory sitting next to Lorelai on their bed, reading _Madeleine_ aloud as Lorelai beamed with pride. All topped off by Rory swimming out to meet Lorelai and loudly protesting as Lorelai pulled her back to the shore, bemused by the terrified look on her mother's face.

Lorelai decided at that point that it was time to get her and Rory out of the shed. She spent the past eight and a half years building a nice cocoon for the two of them, but she couldn't keep fumbling along, putting off their plans until things got settled, figuring that the existence that they had for now was good enough. It was time for them to find a solid home of their own so that they could finally become part of some sort of community instead of being the single mom and her child tucked away on the outskirts of the inn.

A little over a year later, she and Rory had moved into their own house. They became fully incorporated into the insanity that was Stars Hollow instead of retreating to the shed night after night. And then they met Luke.

As Lorelai went through the motions of saying good-bye to Rory and waited until her plane became a speck in the distance, she was reminded of that day on the beach. Her daughter was drifting away from her, but this time it wasn't to the mortal doom her mother's overworked brain had concocted. She was finally beginning the future that she had dreamed of for years. Part of Lorelai wanted to go out and drag her back to her, but even as the thought occurred to her she knew that instinct of wanting to keep Rory by her side at all times was something that she had to let go of for good. The time when she and Rory had been the most important person to each other was over. Rory had a new life to begin, and so did she.

Her heart thumped steadily in her chest as she made her way back to Luke's.


	2. Luke and Lorelai

_This chapter turned out a bit more melancholy than I anticipated, but it's all part of getting these characters to where they need to be. I'm not going to go in explicit detail with the S6 issues like I have in other stories, but I think it's also clear that all of that emotional damage is not going to be fixed in a single conversation._

 _There will probably be a few more L/L focused chapters before we pivot over to Rory's side of the story, but I really wanted them to get to the place where they could discuss all of the things that AYITL era Lorelai was afraid to talk about. So the angst will be short-lived, but there's probably at least one more difficult chapter for them before we can move onto more positive developments._

 _As always, thanks for reading and drop me a review if you so desire._

It turned out that the words "I forgive you" only went so far.

It wasn't that they didn't mean them. Lorelai had never wanted to stand between Luke and his love for his daughter. She'd always known that April deserved all of the love and devotion that Luke had bestowed on her and Rory. She had only wanted to be included in it and to have the life with Luke that they had planned on before things got so horribly out of control. She knew Luke hadn't inflicted any of his cruelties intentionally, but that hadn't made any of them hurt any less. She didn't know if she could trust Luke not to fall into the same pattern again.

She was still angry, and hurt, and she kept replaying what Luke had told her back in the hay bale maze.

I was afraid.

Why had he been afraid? Did he mean it when he said yes? What was so scary about her that made him push her completely out of his life?

She still didn't know.

For his part, Luke had meant it when he said he forgave Lorelai for running to Christopher. It had been one of those cuts that had gotten to the very heart of him, that small, dark place where he placed his grief for his parents and had rarely let anyone see. He knew he could have withdrawn into himself and let all of his rage and sadness take shape in the fury that destroyed anyone who got near him. He also knew that it wouldn't have changed anything. He convinced himself that it was all doomed to end this way eventually and focused on the people he still had in his life: April, Liz, Lane, Jess. He didn't want to think about what he could have done to prevent what had happened because then he would have to actually think about what had happened.

He couldn't bring himself to do that for a long time.

Still, as the months went by it got a little easier to remember Lorelai and their relationship without feeling that he would black out from the emotional pain. He began to think that maybe he had been wrong to believe that their relationship was destined to end the way that it had. There had been love and passion and tenderness there for a long time, and before that there was friendship. He still trusted her opinion more than anyone else's. When April got sick, she was the first person he thought to call.

It wasn't until later that it occurred to him what it would mean to Lorelai for him to ask for her help in this way.

When he saw her at the hospital, he thought that it might be the beginning of healing things between them. Despite everything that had happened, she cared enough to come to him. Maybe they could start talking again. Maybe they could find a way to fix everything that had gone wrong.

Then he saw her wedding ring and knew that he had been too late. He couldn't hide from it at that point.

He had to confront every stupid, thoughtless, inconsiderate decision that had led them to this. Lorelai was married to the man he had always hated, the one person he feared would take Lorelai away from him, and that person had actually succeeded. Christopher was living in Luke's house, sleeping in his bed, married to the woman that Luke had loved and longed for almost as long as he could remember. That life had been within his grasp, and he had thrown it away.

He hated himself more than he thought possible.

Throughout it all, Lorelai never stopped supporting him. It was because of her that he hadn't lost April.

Now he had Lorelai back for good, but that same fears kept creeping up at the back of his mind.

What if I screw up again without knowing it?

Will she let me know this time?

What's stopping her from running to him if things go wrong?

Those same fears and insecurities kept defeating their good intentions and honest desire to be with each other. They had put off their physical relationship for a few days while they discussed what had gone wrong between them, but that quickly went by the wayside once the basics were discussed. He was sorry for pushing her away. She was sorry for running to Christopher. They forgave each other. It was easy to take it to the next step from that point.

Besides, they had missed each other too much to wait any longer.

It wasn't long until the accusations and the tears and the fights started again. They would wring out each other emotionally until there was nothing left, apologize to each other, and let the passion that always existed between them act as a brief salve to their wounds. It was a vicious cycle, and it wasn't getting them to where they wanted to be.

"Do you still want it?' Lorelai tearfully asked Luke after the third time a random comment or a missed call from April had brought them to this impasse. They sat at opposite ends of the sofa, the tissues scattered on the coffee table in front of them.

Luke looked up sharply from where his head was buried in his hands.

"Of course I do," he told her.

"I don't mean just you and me," Lorelai replied, letting her blue gaze meet his. "I mean everything. The life we were planning. The marriage, the kids. Everything."

"I want all of that," Luke told her sincerely. "Do you?"

Lorelai nodded as she choked out another sob. Luke moved closer to her on the sofa and reached around to rub her shoulder, wishing he possessed some magical ability to make this hurt between them go away for good.

"I don't think we can do it by ourselves," Lorelai said softly. "Luke, I think we need help."

Luke stiffened as he pondered the implications of that.

Lorelai turned to look at him again as Luke took her hand in his and ran his finger over her knuckles.

"I'll do it," he replied. "If it's what we need to get there, I'll do it in a heartbeat." He let his forehead rest against hers. "I'll do whatever it takes to fix what's wrong."

Lorelai felt his voice reverberate through her chest and felt that sense of peace and calm that always came from being near him, from knowing of that same selflessness that made up the bulk of the strength that was Luke.

Despite everything that had gone wrong between the two of them, that was him. That was what she fell in love with. That was what she wanted for the rest of her life.

"It's not going to be easy," she reminded him. "I don't exactly have a good track record with this kind of thing."

Luke felt the temptation to wince as he was reminded of Lorelai's impromptu backseat therapy session the night of their break-up. He knew only the vaguest of details about it, but it still bothered him.

"It's going to be different this time," he told Lorelai.

"Are you sure about that?" she asked him.

"Yes," he replied with conviction. "This time I won't let you go through with it alone."

Lorelai booked the appointment the next day.

 _So, yes, I stole that line from Luke's speech in AYITL, but I will always revel in the glory of that speech. If nothing else is to be kept from the revival, let's at least keep that._

 _I do believe that Luke and Lorelai probably needed therapy in order to achieve the life goals that they had once had, and that the main reason why Lorelai sought a non traditional life with Luke in the AYITL timeline is because she felt guilty about letting her obsession with those same goals help destroy them in the past. I think things would be different if she had a way to let go of all that fear and that guilt, and this is my attempt to help both Luke and Lorelai get to a place where they can have all of the things that they (and we) wanted._

 _So here goes nothing! Let me know what you think of it so far._


	3. The Therapist (Part I)

"So where did you hear of this guy?"

Lorelai cautiously looked over to where Luke was gripping the steering wheel as he navigated the interstate. They were on their way to their first therapist's appointment, and her stomach had been performing increasingly elaborate feats of gymnastics ever since they had left the house. Luke was trying to appear calm, but she could tell that he was almost as nervous as she was. He didn't clench the instruments of his truck to the point where his knuckles were nearly white when he was relaxed.

"I looked around for a couple of people in Hartford who worked with couples like us," Lorelai told him before turning to gaze out the window.

"Couples like us?"

"Older- _ish_ couples that need to clear some hurdles before they can make a commitment," Lorelai clarified.

"I'm not sure I like the term older- _ish_ ," Luke dryly remarked.

It took Lorelai a couple of seconds to realize that he balked at that word instead of her reference to commitment.

"Well, we can't call ourselves middle-aged because we're not middle-aged, and there's a couple of things we want to accomplish before we get to that point, but we might need some guidance in order to get there. That's what we agreed on." Lorelai looked over in his direction once more, feeling suddenly vulnerable. "Right?"

Luke nodded. "Right," he immediately replied.

Lorelai felt her stomach start to settle down.

"Have you been thinking about this a while?" Luke asked.

Lorelai's stomach started its aerobic exercises again. So much for that, she mused to herself.

"I'm not mad," Luke continued, seeking to reassure her. "I think you're right about this."

"That's not exactly something I'd ever thought I'd hear you say about therapy," Lorelai said, a hint of amusement in her voice.

"I'm not going to lie and say that I've been looking forward to this," Luke replied as he turned off on the exit to Hartford. "If it gets us to where we want to be, then it's necessary. We need to do it."

"It's going to be emotional and messy, Luke," Lorelai reminded him. "It's going to be hard."

Luke gazed in her direction, knowing that the next word to pop out of her mouth should be dirty.

Lorelai chuckled. "I'm not going to say it," she told him.

Luke turned into the parking lot, found a space near the front of the office building, and turned off the ignition. He gazed at the unassuming brick building in front of them that held the key to their future. He wondered how something so ordinary looking could simultaneously be so terrifying.

Lorelai sighed and shuddered next to him, and the part of him that felt compelled to protect Lorelai at all costs leapt forward to overweigh everything else.

"Whatever happens, we do it together," he assured her as he reached for her hand. "You understand that, right?"

Lorelai threaded her fingers through his as she looked up to meet his steady gaze.

"I do," she told him. "I really do."

* * *

The therapist was as unthreatening as humanly possible.

He was an Asian man with a gentle demeanor who looked to be about their age, dressed casually in dress pants and a pullover sweater. The office was understated and almost rustic – it even had a fireplace, and the sofa that they sat on wouldn't have looked out of place in Lorelai's own living room. He didn't flinch as Luke and Lorelai recapped the emotional ravages of their recent history and seemed amenable to helping them get to a place where they could reach their somewhat lofty life goals.

"It can seem like a tall order, but both of you seem determined to work on it," he remarked. "I just want both of you to understand that not everything is going to be solved right away."

"Oh, believe me, I've learned the hard way what can happen when you try to rush this kind of timetable," Lorelai replied.

She felt Luke shift nervously next to her, and immediately stiffened.

"What do you think about that, Luke?" the therapist asked.

"I'm open to whatever Lorelai wants," Luke said.

Lorelai inwardly cringed, wondering if Luke was going to end up being more of a silent participant in this exercise than he claimed he wanted to be.

"I know she's said she wants us to get us to where we were headed before things got so messed up last year," Luke continued. He turned his head and let his gaze meet Lorelai's, and she immediately felt relieved. "I want all those things, too."

"Things like –" the therapist prodded.

Luke took a deep breath, and quietly exhaled. "Moving in together, officially, I guess. Getting married. Having kids. All the traditional things."

"Would you agree that you're looking for those things, too, Lorelai?"

"I am," Lorelai replied. "I'm not looking to have it happen in the next five minutes, but I do want it to happen. I think we need some help in talking about what went wrong between us and maybe finding out a way to avoid making the same mistakes again."

"What do you think is probably the biggest obstacle you have in moving forth at this point?"

Lorelai stayed silent for a moment, wondering if Luke would have trouble accepting the next thing she had to say. _This is how we got into this trouble in the first place_ , she reminded herself. She ignored the sinking feeling in her gut and continued on.

"I know we have a lot of things to discuss regarding Christopher," Lorelai said, pointedly avoiding Luke's gaze. "It's going to be difficult to put all of that behind us, but I don't think it's our biggest problem. I think what we need help with is learning how to become a couple again now that so much has changed. There's a lot of new circumstances that we need to figure our way around that we didn't deal with too well last time." "

"You mean April," Luke said softly.

Lorelai gathered her resolve and shifted to look him in the eye. "Yeah."

"There is no we when it came to April," Luke said forcefully. "It was me. I'm the one who handled things badly."

"I understand that, Luke," Lorelai replied. "And I really think we need to talk about everything that happened, but that's not going to get us anywhere if we don't agree about what needs to change."

"What do you specifically think needs to change in this area, Lorelai?" the therapist asked.

Lorelai felt momentarily chastised but brushed the feeling off.

"I just want to be included in April's life like Luke is in Rory's," Lorelai began. "I don't want to be a third parent or make any big decisions for her or anything like that, but I'd like to know that I can spend time with her and know about her life and that she can come to me for advice sometimes. I want to know that Luke won't freak out and try to keep us apart again."

"I want those things to happen, too," Luke said. "But April's away right now, and there's not a lot I can do about it right at this moment. She knows we're back together and that Lorelai will be around when she gets back from camp, but the rest of it –" Luke sighed. "I can't move any faster on it until she actually gets here."

"Do you think that there's anything you can do to reassure Lorelai that you're on the right path in this area before she gets here?" the therapist asked.

Luke rubbed his knuckles together. "She calls a few times a week," he suggested. "I guess I could let her talk to Lorelai when she calls."

"I'd like that," Lorelai said softly.

Luke nodded. "I'm still not sure you want to base any kind of future relationship you two are going to have on me and Rory, though," he said reluctantly.

"You were always there for her, Luke," Lorelai said. "Even when things weren't right between you and me, or they weren't right between _her_ and me, you were always there to pour her some coffee and let her know that things were going to be all right." She turned to him and placed a hand on his knee that was quickly covered with his own. "You were there for the important moments in her life. That meant a lot, Luke. She adores you."

"I wasn't there for this last one," Luke reminded her.

Lorelai guiltily met the therapist's stare briefly, then looked away.

"I mean her college graduation," Luke clarified, more for the benefit of the therapist than for Lorelai. He knew that she knew exactly what he was referring to.

"I –" Lorelai began.

"It's not that big of a deal," Luke told her. "Not compared to everything else. But sometimes when we were together, or even when we weren't together, I felt that if I suggested something you wouldn't take it well. Like back when you two weren't talking to each other, and I wanted to try to talk to her and smooth things out between you two, and you wouldn't have it. I don't know if I was really in it with you."

"Did you want to be?' the therapist asked him.

"Maybe, I guess," Luke replied. "Lorelai's always done some a great job with Rory on her own, and I kind of messed up on the kids I had to raise."

"Your nephew?" the therapist asked.

Luke nodded. "I guess I wanted to be included more than I was sometimes. But I was always thinking that the way Lorelai did it was the right way to do things, too."

"What do you think about that, Lorelai?" the therapist asked.

"I've always had a hard time with sharing Rory," Lorelai conceded. "It took me a long time to even get used to my parents spending time with her. I always thought Luke was comfortable with their relationship, though. "

"Being comfortable with your relationship with someone doesn't always mean that you don't want more out of it, or that there isn't room to improve," the therapist told her. "Especially if you don't know if what you want is necessarily the best thing for everyone involved. Does that make sense?"

Lorelai nodded.

"I think we've done enough for today," the therapist concluded. "If both of you are comfortable with this, I'd like to see you in a week and hear an update on how the phone calls are going, and kind of discuss the situation with your kids a little bit more."

"That's fine," Luke said, turning to Lorelai for affirmation. Lorelai nodded as they both rose to shake his hand.

They both left the office a little less unsettled than they had entered it.

* * *

"It wasn't really what I was expecting," Luke said to Lorelai as they drove home that evening.

Neither of them had felt the need to discuss the appointment right away. They had retreated to a steak restaurant in Hartford and enjoyed what was a usual part of their non-fighting routine: comfort food, a few beers, Lorelai needling Luke over various bits of Stars Hollow gossip. Luke was relieved to see Lorelai transform from the nervous, uncertain woman sitting next to him on the therapist's couch to her usual ebullient, confident self.

However, the time had come to actually discuss this new development in their relationship, and he only hoped that this wouldn't lead them into another verbal altercation over old wounds.

He felt good about where they were headed, but he had been wrong about these things before.

"He asked a lot of questions," Lorelai remarked. "I didn't think it would be quite like that. I guess part of me thought we'd swoop in and WHOOSH! he'd tell us what to do next, you know?"

Luke smirked. "I don't think it works that way," he told her.

"I know it doesn't," Lorelai admitted. "I think it's going to be a good thing for us," she clarified. "He didn't judge us. I liked that."

"Gonna be a lot of ugly history dredged up in that room," Luke remarked.

Lorelai smiled and looked over at him. "So I guess you're okay with it," she said.

"This is never going to be my preferred method of how to deal with things," Luke told her. "But now that we've actually been there, I guess –" He shrugged. "It wasn't that bad."

"Are you serious about the phone calls?" Lorelai asked.

"There's not a lot else I can do from here," Luke said. He looked over at her. "And yes, I'm serious."

Lorelai smiled to herself, feeling a soft warmth start to spread over her insides. Part of her didn't want to trust that feeling, but that was outweighed by the other part of her that knew that letting the past direct their insecurities is part of what put both of them in this position in the first place.

Avoiding being honest with each other was most of the other part.

"I didn't know you felt the way you did about the way I handled things after Rory dropped out of Yale," Lorelai told him. "I wasn't trying to keep you out of it, Luke. I just needed –" She sighed. "I needed someone to support me in what I was doing back then. I didn't think anybody else understood how important this was to me the way that you did."

"I did support what you were doing," Luke maintained. "I offered to kidnap her, didn't I? You were right about wanting her to stay in school. I was with you with that all along."

"So it was just us freezing each other out you didn't really go along with, then?"

"I just think if you two could have sat down and talked to each other it wouldn't have gone on for so long," Luke said. "I just felt, I don't know –" He shook his head. "Like you weren't listening to me."

Lorelai felt an impulse of indignation surface, but she bit it down before she drove them down an April-shaped side avenue.

 _There's time for that_ , she told herself. _That's why we need help. The time just isn't now._

"I did listen," Lorelai insisted. "I just didn't agree."

"Look, I know I did much worse when the situation was flipped around to me," Luke conceded, immediately sensing where this conversation could lead. "You stood right in front of me, tried to tell me I had zero idea of what to give my daughter for her birthday, and I should have known that because I've always been terrible at that sort of thing, and I ignored you. And you were right. You were probably right about Rory, too."

"I don't know that I was, Luke," Lorelai said softly. "My whole life's always been so wrapped up in trying to take care of her on my own. I wish you would have told me you felt left out, though."

"You needed me to back you up at that point," Luke said. He turned his head to meet the limpid gaze in her eyes and reached out for her hand. "I know you did."

Lorelai felt his rough flesh wave its way around her fingers and felt the relief start to settle itself completely into her bones. The hard discussions weren't being put off forever, but merely postponed until they could find a way to deal with them.

She did trust in that feeling. It wasn't temporary or illusory, a panacea meant to tide either of them over while they desperately avoided upsetting the balance that they had created.

It was real.

"We've got to be better at talking to each other about this stuff," she said.

"I know," he told her, looking her directly in the eye.

"We will be," he said with confidence.

Unlike before, it was a promise he had every intention of keeping.


	4. Rory

_So this update has taken quite a while. Oopsie._

 _I kind of wanted to rewrite the one-night stand conversation between Rory and Lorelai in AYITL and incorporate it into a timeline that makes sense, so I've attempted to do that here. I also wanted to approach Rory's life on the campaign tour from a different angle and honestly deal with the aspects of her personality that weren't well-suited to her life goals, and how someone like Rory would react to that._

 _That said, everything that happens here is based on entirely too much freaking research. Yes, I was stalling. I admit it. However, if I know exactly where Rory would have been at any given point on the campaign trail, I might as well put those details to good use._

 _So here goes nothing. Read, enjoy (or gnash your teeth, either one is fine) and drop me a review if you so desire._

Life on the campaign trail wasn't exactly what Rory had thought it would be.

For one thing, they weren't exactly crisscrossing the country. They started out in New Hampshire, bounced around to Virginia, headed to South Carolina, moved onto Washington DC, and then headed back to New Hampshire. Rory's glance at their upcoming itinerary told her that the next few weeks involved mostly traveling between the battleground states of New Hampshire and South Carolina interspersed with trips to DC. The schedule definitely made sense in terms of managing a political campaign, but she wasn't really being exposed to much she hadn't seen before.

Rory knew New England like the back of her hand, and she'd spent an entire summer in DC as a teenager. South Carolina didn't exactly fit in with the stereotype she had in her head, but the main thing that stuck out to her about the South so far was mostly the sweet tea. She was anticipating the upcoming stops in Chicago and Miami mostly because it was a slight variation to the routine that had been established. She'd had looked forward to this for her entire life, and wanted to cherish everything new it had to offer her.

The truth was that she wasn't sure she _liked_ this kind of life half as much as she wanted to.

She was always losing things. Her hairbrush, her clothes, her spare laptop battery. She was exhausted and seemingly always on a deadline, and the days seemed to be running together. Her articles seemed to be well-received, but she still fretted about doing well enough now that she was a _real_ reporter with _real_ press credentials competing with people who had a lot more experience than she did. She simultaneously felt overwhelmed with responsibility and guilty at not enjoying the experience more, and she was at a loss as to how to balance those two things.

She missed Stars Hollow and her mother, and felt heartsick at not knowing when she would get to see either of them again. She knew her mom and Luke were trying to work things out and needed their space right now, but she still worried about how things were proceeding on that front. She missed her grandparents and their weekly dinners, and her grandfather's quiet yet steady encouragement.

She missed Logan, and spent more time than she would have liked rethinking their relationship. Would she have been happier if she had followed him out to California like he wanted? Would she have been able to handle things better if he had agreed on having a long-distance relationship (at least for awhile) like _she_ had wanted?

She didn't know. She missed talking to him, and worried about how he was adjusting to life miles (and circumstances) away from the life he'd always known. She had gotten so used to the patient boyfriend who listened to her and agreed to factor in what she wanted, and she had wanted their relationship to continue like it was. She hadn't been ready to face the fact that their desires might conflict at a point where their relationship would have to be sacrificed.

She wanted to make the sacrifice on her part be worth it, but it hadn't been at all like she had imagined. Maybe she was drowning in self-pity because of the demise of her own relationship. Maybe it was just that she mourned the loss of the routine that she was used to and the knowledge of how all the different parts of her life fit together. She had lost most of those parts now: it was just her and this job and as much as she knew she should be enjoying it, she was still mourning everything that she had left behind.

She knew she wasn't alone in this. She was surrounded by a coterie of new reporters who shared the same passions and anxieties, and most of them chose to drown their confusion in drinks and strings-free hookups. She engaged in the former but was still holding out on the latter: it just didn't feel like her. At least not yet.

Her hopes rose when she heard that Obama had a speech scheduled for the end of June in Hartford. She could finally visit home, pick up a couple of outfits, check in on her mom and Luke, and maybe make it to Friday Night Dinner. She didn't think she would have time to squeeze in a town meeting or a movie marathon, but she could see the places and people that she knew that she loved and loved her back in return.

Unfortunately, it wasn't to be. The debate between the Democratic presidential candidates at Howard University was scheduled five days after the speech in Hartford, and Rory was ordered to accompany a handful of other reporters to do prep work before the debate. Rory was deeply disappointed, but as a brand-new reporter she knew she couldn't fight this. She never even told her mother that she had the chance to be in the area briefly, although she received several mournful texts once Lorelai had figured out that Obama was scheduled to be in the city.

It was an opportunity missed, but there would be others. Possibly. Hopefully. She wasn't sure she'd be good company right now, anyway.

The week spent in Washington D.C. actually did Rory a great deal of good. She spent most of her time paired up with a fellow reporter named Xavier, who had graduated from Howard University a year ago. He'd bounced around a bit before joining the website in January, and reassured Rory that the disappointment she felt about the job not living up to expectations was completely normal. Xavier clearly wasn't as focused on routine and stability as Rory, who was quickly finding out that her Type A tendencies ran even deeper than she had thought possible, but they still found a lot to bond over. He had been raised by a single mom in Atlanta, and had made it boarding school on scholarship when he was fifteen. He rejected Ivy League offers to attend Howard University, and had flourished. He knew what it was to bridge the hardscrabble and elite worlds, just like she did, and he knew what it was to miss that nurturing environment more than one could have anticipated when the real world came calling.

The last night before the debate, Rory could sense things changing. His smile was wider, his eyes a little more entrancing. Maybe it was the fact that they were isolated away from the other reporters, or that she felt a connection to him from all that they had in common. Maybe it was that she actually felt encouraged that she'd learn to love this a little more from someone who had already been there, or that she'd actually felt excited by this opportunity for the first time in weeks.

Maybe it was none of that, and the bar was serving exceptionally good whiskey.

In an uncharacteristic move, Rory Gilmore fell into the bed of someone she barely knew.

And while it lasted, it was very, very good.

* * *

"Are you okay?" Xavier asked her the next morning as they ate breakfast in the hotel lobby just like they had every single morning for the past four days.

"I'm – " Rory was completely stumped at how to explain herself. She felt regret, but she didn't. She had wanted it to mean something more, but she didn't. She thought it would be awkward, but it wasn't.

Sex should mean something more than this, shouldn't it? She felt a bit tawdry and used, but not by Xavier. By the experience. Once again, she found herself trying to feel something that she felt that she should while also knowing that she couldn't make herself do it.

"This is the first time you've done something like this, isn't it?" Xavier guessed.

Rory sighed. "It's that obvious, huh?"

"Kind of," Xavier responded as he finished off the last of his bagel. "Did I make you uncomfortable or – "

Rory shook her head. "That's not it," she insisted. "Look, Xavier, I've really enjoyed the time we've spent together this week and I really had a nice time last night, but –"

"Oh, don't start that," Xavier said. " _Now_ it's uncomfortable."

"I'm just not used to this," Rory continued. "I mean, I feel like I should feel sorry for not wanting it to mean more, but –" She laughed. "I'm making this really weird for you, aren't I?"

"A little," Xavier replied. "Did you _want_ it to mean more?"

"No," Rory told him. "I mean, did you?"

"I don't want to hurt your feelings, but I thought we were –" Xavier shrugged.

"Just having fun," Rory finished for him.

"Exactly."

"I did," Rory said. "I just think in the long run, it should mean more. But at the same time, I don't regret it, either. And I'm still trying to work that out in my head."

"I get that," Xavier told her. "Really."

"I had the same boyfriend throughout most of college," Rory said, still attempting to explain herself. "I didn't really have the opportunity to figure this stuff out beforehand."

"You break up at graduation?" Xavier asked.

Rory nodded. "Pretty common story, right?"

"You could say that," Xavier responded. "Happened to me, too. She stayed in the area, actually, so she might be here tonight."

"Oh," Rory replied as a sudden realization hit her gut. _Oh._

"Where's yours?" Xavier asked distractedly as he sipped his coffee.

"California," Rory said quickly. "Xavier, is it weird for us to be hooking up here?"

"You mean is it weird _besides_ the fact that it's turned you off of the whole experience of casual sex completely?"

Rory let loose a nervous laugh. "No, Xavier, it's just that – well, being on your home turf and everything."

Xavier scoffed. "Oh, that. I don't discriminate when it comes to girlfriend material –"

Rory raised an eyebrow.

"Or to people I just want to have fun with," he continued. "Besides, you're cute and I liked hanging out with you this week. Why not give it a shot?"

Rory laughed. "So we're still friends?"

Xavier grinned. "Still friends."

The whole experience with Xavier seemed to break Rory out of her funk. She had watched an earlier debate in New Hampshire, and been underwhelmed, but as she watched the candidates interacting on the stage, she actually felt enlivened and energized by what she was witnessing, particularly with the drama surrounding the one candidate who openly castigated the people beside him on the stage for their supposed sins. She could feel a hidden drama lurking in the shadows, and although it certainly wasn't what she was there to write about, she wondered what she might find if she dug just a little deeper.

The investigative drive had been inspired in her, and she was actually looking forward to where it would lead next.

In the meantime, she and Xavier had kept their promises, and continued to share trade stories of prep school and college as they worked on their article together. He moved on romantically – if you wanted to call it that – within the next few days, and Rory expected to feel jealous, or guilty about the night that they shared, but the feeling never came.

She still didn't know what it all meant, other than the fact that she didn't want to repeat the experience. She was interested in what she was doing and began to feel for the first time in weeks that she actually had a purpose in being on the campaign trail. If it had taken an accidental one-night stand for her to get there, then the least she could do was to be grateful for it.

* * *

It took Lorelai a few phone conversations to needle the truth out of Rory, but she finally succeeded on the fourth try.

They had covered every conceivable topic that Lorelai would allow: Luke, the forthcoming visit with April (Lorelai was tentatively looking forward to it), Sookie's imminent delivery, the frequent baby-sitting she and Luke were doing for Lane and Liz, Kirk's attempts to get Luke to participate in the Fourth of July parade, and the fact that Luke was now attending every town meeting with Lorelai and Taylor was convinced that there was some sort of sinister reasoning behind it.

Rory talked about the Howard debate a little, but had precious little to tell her mothers on the events that had led to it: she had been so listless and confused the first few weeks she barely remembered anything that had happened.

The words slipped out before Rory could stop herself.

"How did you feel the first time you hooked up with someone for a one-time thing?

Lorelai stopped in her tracks and retreated from the kitchen where Luke was adroitly whipping up some lasagna and headed upstairs towards her bedroom.

"Rory, that's definitely a tidbit of information you've left out."

"I didn't –" Rory sighed and flopped down on her hotel room bed. "It happened right before the debate."

"Well, it's only a one-time thing if you agree not to see each other again," Lorelai said. "Do you want to see him again?"

"I don't," Rory said immediately. "At least not romantically. We both agreed on that. We're still friends. We wrote that article together. We still have breakfast together every other morning."

"And you're okay with that?" Lorelai asked, trying to suss out the situation.

"I am," Rory insisted. "I enjoyed it – during. And I didn't really regret it afterwards. I keep feeling like I should have, though. I just –"

"Rory, if that's the way you feel, then there's not any shame in that," Lorelai told her daughter. "As long as you parted on good terms and aren't interfering in anyone else's relationship."

"That's just it, though," Rory said. "I didn't feel anything. And I felt I should feel _something_. I figured there's some part of me that wanted to feel that thrill, you know. There's still romance in my head of traveling the world and having affairs in these far flung places and it just wasn't like that at all. There was no romance in it whatsoever."

"Rory, it's going to be rare that anything you experience in life is going to live up to what you've been building up in your head for years," Lorelai pointed out.

"But I've felt it before!" Rory said, a little bit louder than she had intended. "I felt that with Logan, when we first got together. It was different from that new relationship rush, because it wasn't a relationship, and maybe it turned into something ugly after a few months, but then it got better. And even if I liked it when it was better, I still felt that excitement at first. It wasn't there this time, and I was expecting it to be."

Lorelai remained silent, her heart twisting as she remembered Rory drunk and sobbing on the floor of her bathroom, crying that Logan didn't like her anymore. It was hard to weigh that memory against that of the earnest young man asking her for her daughter's hand in marriage.

And yet it had ended up in the same way, with Rory's heart broken once again. Lorelai was well aware of how much more it could hurt when that first-time rush transformed into a real relationship before everything fell to pieces.

That romance of knowing what it was like to start things over from the beginning didn't always hold up once you put yourself through it again.

"You're just a month removed from your relationship with Logan," Lorelai gently told her daughter. "I don't think anyone else is going to live up to him for quite a while."

"I wasn't expecting that," Rory replied. "But I was expecting – well, something. I just have to think now of what kind of relationship I can expect if I'm going to live this kind of life. I don't think I'm suited to hooking up with people like this, but I keep thinking of Logan and how he wasn't willing to continue this with me. I don't know who else is going to be willing to go along with it at this point."

"Rory, do you regret that you told Logan no?" Lorelai asked.

Rory sniffled. "No," she said honestly. "I needed to do this to find out what it was like, if nothing else. The reality hasn't quite been what I thought it would be, but I'm warming up to it. I think I was maybe a little too homesick at first."

"Then that's all you need to know," Lorelai said. "The fact that Logan wouldn't give you this space is on _Logan_ , not you. You've got the rest of your life to figure out what kind of relationship is going to work for you."

"I guess you're right," Rory said, feeling a little bit reassured. "You never answered my question, though, Mom."

Lorelai sighed. "Rory, I never had a one-night stand."

"Really?" Rory asked incredulously.

"Thank you, dear daughter," Lorelai answered, rolling her eyes.

"I didn't mean –" Rory began.

"We lived in a potting shed until you were eleven years old," Lorelai said. "We slept in the same bed, Rory. How exactly was I going to manage this?"

"I know, but –" Rory paused. "Even back then, I used to stay with Mia or Sookie sometimes so that you could have 'grown-up time.' At least that's what Mia called it."

"That didn't happen often, Rory," Lorelai pointed out. "I know you were probably too little to remember it, but I would always be there by ten at the latest, and you'd just be on the verge of falling asleep. Mia or Sookie would drive us home and you wouldn't actually conk out until we were tucked into the same bed."

Rory smiled. "I do remember that, actually."

"I'm not saying that I never found someone I liked and was with them for a limited amount of time," Lorelai explained. "Call them three or four or five night stands if you want. It was all very structured and planned out in advance. When I was your age, I had a kid in kindergarten and a goal to move up from the front desk and a lot of rules about how close anyone was going to get to any of that. It didn't result in a lot of dates."

"I guess I never thought about it that way," Rory said in a small voice. "It's just – you always had your nights out and your time alone and I wasn't allowed to know about any of it. Maybe I remember more of it after we moved to the house."

"I started being more open to it once you were old enough to be left alone at night," Lorelai said. "But it still didn't happen that often. And I was always home by eleven. I wasn't going to let anyone else interfere with our life, Rory. I knew where we needed to be and what we needed to do to get there, and I wasn't going to let anything as insignificant as a _boyfriend_ get in the way."

"I guess I made it into more than it was since it was the only thing you really kept secret," Rory mused.

"Well, if a side effect of that is that I appear to be more glamorous and in demand than I actually am, I'm willing to accept that," Lorelai said with a hint of arrogance in her voice. "The thing is, Rory, I'm not sure why this is coming up now. I thought you had your own version of this when you started dating Logan. Weren't you stringing one of his friends along for a while?"

"I wasn't," Rory clarified. "I was using his friend Robert for a while to make him jealous, but the most we ever did is make out a little." She sighed. "The end result was always getting Logan to myself. I don't think I ever even seriously considered hooking up with his friends."

"And now?" Lorelai prodded.

"I don't think I'll do it again," Rory affirmed. "It's not me. Maybe I needed to experience it once to find out that I didn't want it, but it's definitely not what I'm looking for."

"And you were protected –"

"That lesson was instilled in me a long time ago," Rory assured her mother. "I know how to take care of myself, Mom."

Lorelai breathed a slight sigh of relief. 'I'm glad," she said. "About all of it. I want you to do whatever makes you happy, Rory, but I'll tell you what I did before. This kind of thing really isn't for you. You're a relationship-oriented girl, Rory, and I want that for you. I want this to be easier on you than it was for me."

"How is that going, anyway?" Rory asked.

"We're getting there," Lorelai said, not wanting to divulge the details of what had been hashed out in therapy. "It's going to take time, but we both know what we want this time around. It's just going to take a little extra effort to get there."

"So I don't need to set any dates aside yet or –"

"Not yet," Lorelai clarified. "Rory, after what happened last year the last thing either Luke and I need is to rush this before we're ready. But when we are, we'll let both you and April know. Okay?"

Rory was a little surprised to hear her possible future stepsister's name dropped so easily, but she took it as a good sign. A very good sign.

"I want you to be good at this, too, Mom," Rory told her sincerely.

"Me, too, kid," Lorelai told her daughter. "Me too."

* * *

The day after her joint article with Xavier was posted, Rory received an e-mail that took her a little off guard.

 _Saw the article on the website this morning. Way to go, Gilmore! Drop me a text when you're in Philly and we can grab a coffee. It's been a while._

 _XO Jess Mariano_

Rory grinned to herself, recalling how her relationship with Jess had miraculously been repaired in the wake of her near-infidelity last summer.

She had called him a few weeks later to apologize, feeling blindsided over what has transpired between her parents the night her mother broke it off with Luke and realizing immediately that she had almost done worse to the men in her life. She loved Logan, but she still cared for Jess and felt badly for how she had nearly used him. She had almost gone far enough to hurt them both out of spite, and she still regretted how close she had gotten to actually doing it.

Jess seemed to take her apology sincerely, but she wondered if he'd ever want to talk to her again, especially after the breakdown of her mother's relationship with Luke.

She had run into Jess in town shortly after her parents had gotten married. He had come into town to meet his newborn sister and seemed happy to see Rory. They went to get coffee at Weston's – Rory was still hesitant to step foot inside the diner often, especially given recent circumstances – and chatted about books and town gossip. Jess told her about some of the books the press was putting out and Rory talked about her plans for the future. Jess asked if she'd consider working at the Philadelphia Inquirer if she didn't end up in New York, and Rory said she would think about it.

Any remaining awkwardness between them seemed to have completely disappeared. That may have been because they avoided the subject of Luke and Lorelai, but Rory liked to think it was because they were capable of being friends now without being angry or bitter about the past. Since then, they'd kept in touch with each other by occasional text or e-mail, and Rory had been planning to look him up when the campaign traveled to his city even before he had mentioned it.

Despite their own rocky personal history, Jess had known and respected her long before she was the girl that Logan or that Yale knew, or the girl just beginning to make her way on the campaign trail. It felt good to be in touch with someone who had some idea of who she was at her core.

The rest would take a while to figure out.


End file.
